09 December 2006

The probe into the Jane Creba shooting surfaces some interesting details...

The gun and drug trafficking charges against Steele are based exclusively on selected wiretaps that were among 250,000 recorded in Project Green Apple.

His mom, Valarie Steele, a social advocate, former president of the Jamaica Canadian Association and an adjudicator with the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, has been charged with perjury for allegedly lying about her son's comings and goings while he was under a strict 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew.

What exactly is this social advocate and former president of the Jamaica Canadian Association, hmmm, well... advocating, you might ask.

Ms. Steele, a McGuinty appointee to the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal in 2004, has apparently taught her son not to worry about the rules... or the law.

Valarie Steele, a prominent social activist and a former president of the Jamaica Canadian Association, is heard on a March 28 wiretap counselling a woman named Sonia to "just play it cool" upon entering a hearing scheduled for two days hence.

"Don't tell anybody you know me ... don't acknowledge me," says Steele, who has been a judge on the province's landlord and tenant dispute resolution board for more than two years.

Richard Steele's lawyer, Selwyn Pieters, said outside court that Valarie Steele could not comment because of the presumed investigation that would stem from the wiretap.

As comedian Richard Pryor once said, "Who are you gonna believe... me, or your lyin' eyes?"

Since the charges against Valarie Steele, there has been a groundswell of community support from the Black, African and Caribbean communities as well as from others in the wider society who are alarmed that someone as credible and upstanding as the former JCA President could find herself in this predicament.